A photosensitive transfer material for transferring a photosensitive resin layer on a substrate is used for preparing printed wirings, intaglio and relief printing, name plates, multi-color test printing samples, offset printing plates, color filters and so on. The photosensitive transfer material normally has a temporary support, an intermediate layer (separating layer) or a thermoplastic resin layer and an intermediate layer, and a photosensitive resin layer. When an image is formed on a substrate surface, a separately prepared substrate and a photosensitive resin layer of the photosensitive transfer material are superposed (lamination step), followed by peeling the temporary support alone, further followed by imagewise exposing the photosensitive resin layer through the intermediate layer, followed by developing to form an image.
In the lamination step, conventionally, after the lamination, the temporary support was cut in the proximity of the substrate and, after cooling, the temporary support was peeled off the substrate. However, in order to simplify an equipment to reduce an equipment cost and a space, it is strongly desired to, without cutting the temporary support, continuously peel the temporary support.
However, when, in the conventionally transfer material, the temporary support was continuously peeled, in the proximity of a surface of a thermoplastic resin layer of the transfer material, in some cases, defects such as cracks and chips were caused. Furthermore, in the exposure step, since the exposure is applied through the thermoplastic resin layer, owing to the defects of the thermoplastic resin layer, in part of the exposed image, defects such as crack and distortion are caused in some cases. As the result, there are problems in that the display unevenness, display defects and so on are caused.
On the other hand, as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2003-227918, in a peeling step where the temporary support is peeled off the photosensitive transfer material, a process where, after the layered product is cooled, the cooled layered product is peeled off the temporary support side while heating a peeling roller is known. However, since a step of heating a peeling roller increases, the equipment cannot be simplified.